The Teacher Leadership Conundrum

RCEd Commentary

Many agree: to improve public schooling in America, we must attract and retain more top performing teachers. It's well documented that not enough high-performing individuals - not enough who graduate in the top third of their college classes - enter the profession of teaching today. Of those talented individuals who do enter, far too many leave within five years, for reasons ranging from the lack of long term economic rewards to limited upward mobility. So how can we address issues of professional stagnation to recruit and retain great educators?

While we can't fix every one of those issues, we can do a lot more to let teachers lead, to give teachers more opportunities to advance within their profession.

What is 'teacher Leadership,' really?

Teachers still face students for 75 percent or more of their daily work time. Deepening their instructional practices should be front and center in any call to lead, both for the sake of their students and the students of their peers -- peers they are expected to "lead." There is a risk in applying the blunt instrument of business school leadership lessons in the educational setting. We should stop calling teacher leadership "teacher leadership" and consider "peer influencer."

The role of a masterful teacher in interacting with peers is very different from a first line supervisor in a company or junior officer in the military. Teacher leaders have very little authority and an enormous amount of responsibility, unlike their counterparts in other sectors. Their technical skills in moving student achievement are primary, and their ability to interact with other adults requires a critical new suite of skills. Overemphasizing leadership at the expense of classroom mastery sends two potentially alarming signals to the profession: "Leadership is more important" and "You are good enough" as a classroom teacher. There's a general notion that teachers don't make the grade if they hadn't moved into formal school leadership after several years of classroom teaching.

Leading from the classroom means continually working on the art and craft of teaching students, deepening content and pedagogical knowledge, and developing the interpersonal skills to transfer that body of knowledge and experience to peers. This is what Public Impact's Bryan Hassel described as "the metacognitive understanding of masterful teaching." Teachers are far more likely to seek out such peers when needing help than school leaders or outside experts, according to research by Professor Carrie Leana of the University of Pittsburgh. Honing skills in listening, observing, giving feedback, and managing up and across the organization are more valuable in a school context than leadership skills alone. Peer influencer, rather than teacher leader, should be the goal for these talented professionals.

Companies in the private sector have identified the power and importance of cultivating the skills of individual contributors in their organizations to influence their peers, and have designed professional learning programs that teach interpersonal skills to complement development programs for their best personnel. In one survey conducted in 2009 by Development Directions International, a consultancy that provides such programs to companies, over 60 percent of individual contributors state their intention to remain individual contributors during their careers and not to seek formal leadership roles. In a recent MetLife survey of teachers, that figure was 84 percent. Such a high proportion only further indicates the need for an emphasis on mastery and interpersonal skills in these programs for teachers.

Masterful Teachers Supporting Their Peers

If the education sector wishes to attract, develop and retain masterful teachers, the message should be first and foremost to develop the art and craft of teaching. If, as Malcolm Gladwell famously claimed, experts emerge only after 10,000 hours of practice, then the strategy must focus on retaining teachers well beyond their fifth year in the profession. As Rob Leichner, a 10th year board certified math teacher, department chair and NAATE program graduate in Charlotte, N.C. said, "I have so much more to learn to become a masterful teacher."

Any professional learning programs designed for elite teachers should strike a balance between classroom mastery content and interpersonal skills development. The education sector would be better off de-emphasizing the words "teacher leadership," if it has the unintended consequence of creating the false promise of a vertical rise in the organization. Leading teacher peers is more Mahatma Gandhi than General MacArthur, more cajoling than commanding. This is where development programs should focus.

The Battle for Quality Schools

Stephen Ambrose, in his book "Citizen Soldiers," posits the claim that resourceful junior officers and enlisted men - our ordinary "citizen soldiers" - won WWII from the hedgerows of Normandy to the islands of the Pacific. They led from the front lines not with rank, title and span of control, rather with ingenuity and perseverance through individual and small crew contributions. This is the kind of leadership needed within the education sector from teachers. Some will rise to school leaders and superintendents, but if properly identified, trained and deployed, the vast majority will win the battle for quality public education on the front lines in their classrooms through their teaching and interpersonal skills. Our country has the capacity to build a trained force of masterful teachers who remain student-facing, if it can muster the will. That is the essence of the leadership challenge and opportunity in the classroom teaching profession today.